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Your Paracast Newsletter — November 11, 2018


Gene Steinberg

Forum Super Hero
Staff member
THE PARACAST NEWSLETTER
November 11, 2018
www.theparacast.com


Professor Eric Ouellet Explains Why UFOs May Be a Non-Physical Phenomenon on The Paracast

The Paracast is heard Sundays from 3:00 AM until 6:00 AM Central Time on the GCN Radio Network and affiliates around the USA, the Boost Radio Network, the IRN Internet Radio Network, and online across the globe via download and on-demand streaming.

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This Week's Episode: Gene and Randall revisit a theory that combines parapsychology and sociology with UFOs as we present Eric Ouellet, author of “Illuminations: The UFO Experience as a Parapsychological Event.” In this book, Ouellet’s book provides a thought-provoking reassessment of several well-known UFO cases, including the Washington, D.C. UFO wave of 1952, the Betty and Barney Hill abduction of 1961, the Rendlesham UFO incident of 1980, and the Belgian UFO wave of 1989-1991. Ouellet is a professor of Defense Studies at the Royal Military College of Canada, and at the Canadian Forces College (Canada’s Joint Staff and War College). He has a Ph.D. in sociology from York University (Toronto, Canada).

J. Randall Murphy's Ufology Society International: Ufology Society International (USI) - Explore the UFO Phenomenon

Eric Ouellet's Site: Parasociology

After The Paracast -- Available exclusively for Paracast+ subscribers on November 11: In which Gene and Randall talk about theories that UFOs are generated en masse by our collective unconscious, with our participation. So what we see will generally adhere to our cultural memes. But Randall has long been an advocate of the ETH, the extraterrestrial hypothesis, and he speaks at length about why his beliefs fall in this direction, why he feels extraterrestrials are among us, as Gene guides him along across the possibilities.

Reminder: Please don't forget to visit our famous Paracast Community Forums for the latest news/views/debates on all things paranormal: The Paracast Community Forums. Check out our new YouTube channel at: The Official Paracast Channel

UFOs: Removing the Complications
By Gene Steinberg

So Professor Eric Ouellet speaks of UFOs from our collective unconscious, perhaps involving a co-creation process in which we directly participate in what we see. This is not an unusual theory, since we’ve talked about it on The Paracast a number of times over the years.

But it’s not that we’re promoting any particular view, or that we are down on the possibility that ET is here. Only, after all these years, there is really not a whole lot of evidence that leads us any closer to that solution — or any solution.

In his book, “Illuminations: The UFO Experience as a Parapsychological Event,” Ouellet attempts to apply that view to some actual cases, such as the classic 1952 UFO wave in Washington, D.C., and the 1961 Betty and Barney Hill abduction.

Now as you know, I am not unsympathetic to such possibilities. So perhaps eyewitnesses weren’t really observing the presence of spacecraft simultaneously captured on radar, the “conventional” view of the 1952 event, nor were the Hills actually abducted by alien visitors.

Indeed, it’s well known that the Hills did not describe beings that fit into the gray alien mold, and then there is that peculiar star map, something that could have been staged for their benefit. While explorers in the early 1960s would certainly use physical maps to specify the locations to which they traveled, advanced beings from other worlds would have far more sophisticated methods of navigation. You didn’t see Ensign Sulu examining primitive printed materials when Captain Kirk told him to plot a course to the neutral zone at Warp Six on Star Trek.

The ship’s onboard computers would help guide them along the way, just as Siri or Google Voice will provide verbal guidance as you drive to the local convenience store for a cup of java. You’d still have to control your primitive vehicle, although we are making initial attempts to let the vehicle figure it all out for you.

If the Hills were alive today, and had an abduction experience, would it be identical to the one they described in 1961? Would there even be a star map, or would ET point to a set of coordinates on the screen to indicate where they might have come from? What form would the experience take anyway, if not to reflect the cultural memes of the day?

Now my cohost, J. Randall Murphy, has long advocated for an extraterrestrial explanation for UFOs, and, during our November 11, 2018 episode, he quickly pointed out that Ouellet’s scenarios to explain such experiences appear to be unusually complicated. Wouldn’t the concept of Occam’s razor posit that the explanation involving the least speculation be more credible?

So suggesting a complicated unconscious relationship between us and humanity as a whole might appear less credible. Or perhaps Ouellet is making it more complicated than it truly is.

Then again, is finding the solution to the UFO enigma a matter of applying concepts of philosophy? Whatever the solution ends up being, it doesn’t matter whether we regard it as too complicated or not. Why assume someone is forcing a complicated answer, if that’s what the answer is?

Besides, how would one regard being visited by physical spaceships, with a physical crew, from a physical planet orbiting another star as simple? True, it may fit with our present understanding of our universe, and it surely follows the most popular sci-fi concepts of the day.

But even the Starship Enterprise sometimes encountered entities or intelligences that weren’t quite physical, but presented themselves in ways that were more palatable to our concept of reality. So the very sarcastic “Q” would appear in human form even though he or “it” was an entity that had virtually full control of matter. Q could appear in any form it wished. It could even present itself as a frightening multi-tentacled creature, if that’s what it wanted to do.

But the special effects department could manage it far more cheaply if Q just winked in and winked out again. There was little reason to make it any more complicated than that.

So don’t UFOs at times appear to wink in and wink out? Does that mean that the forces behind that phenomenon can control the reality we perceive, or is that just a visual clue of their methods of transportation?

It’s convenient to assume they are just speeding up so quickly that they seem to just disappear. Our eyes can’t keep up with it.

Yet after all these years, UFOs seem to largely be behaving in the same way, and we only have to be lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to see them. But using the concept of whether a tree falls in the forest if we’re not there to witness the event, would a UFO be present if there were no witnesses?

They assumption that they still would appear is the logic behind setting up networks of UFO detectors to capture them when human witnesses aren’t around to gather data. If what we see is what we’re getting, surely the phenomenon would persist in our absence, right?

When ET lands, someone is there to see it. Or maybe it’s a group of people, but could it be that it’s all happening for our benefit? Would the flying saucer that captured Betty and Barney Hill be there at all if they weren’t present? Were they chosen for some unknown reason?

That’s one of the theories about abductions, that members of certain families are deliberately sought out to undergo the experience. Thus they are targets, and they are being followed around so they do not have to be in a specific location to undergo the experience?

Or is it possible that the event only occurs in certain places, and you have to be at the wrong place at the wrong time to participate in that experience?

Again, a solution doesn’t have to be simple to be correct. What science has taught us is that the things that appear so obvious to us are not at all simple. Planes do not just fly without the application of technologies that become ever more sophisticated over time as we find better and safer ways to make it happen.

Heavier-than-air travel is not at all simple, and don’t get me started about the iPhone.

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